This document provides information about several museum programs and initiatives focused on connecting communities: - The Monterey County Agricultural and Rural Life Museum's (MCARLM) international program strengthens global connections through projects executed by partner communities that support goals like youth empowerment and environmental awareness. - The Museums Connect program facilitates cross-cultural exchanges between US and Honduran partners, including garden projects in King City, CA and Copan, Honduras engaged youth in learning about their local environments. - International ambassador exchanges organized by MCARLM and its Honduran partner deepened relationships between student participants and communities through sharing cultural artifacts and experiences visiting each other's countries.

1. Museums Connect
MCARLM’s International Program

2. Dedicated April 17, 1982
The Monterey County Agricultural and
Rural Life Museum’s (MCARLM)
specific and primary purposes are: the
discovery, acquisition and preservation of
artifacts; interpretation of museum
exhibits, collections and historic
structures; dissemination of knowledge
about the history of farming, agriculture,
and related cultural services in the Salinas
Valley and adjacent areas; to promote
interest through programs of public
interest and education; and to coordinate
fundraising campaigns for the support of
the above purposes.

3. American Alliance of Museums
Museum Assessment Program
Community Engagement
• Increase understanding of:
• Museum’s community and stakeholders
• How the museum is perceived by its audiences
and community
• Improve the Alignment of:
• Mission with audience and community
• Resource allocation with audience and
community needs
• Improve ability to:
• Communicate with the community
• Serve its audiences
• Identify and develop potential audiences
• Create collaborations to address community
needs
• Incorporate community needs into long-range
plans
• Conduct an audience evaluation
• Improve visitor services
• Meet audience needs through exhibitions and
programming
• Write/review/revise policies and procedures
• Write a long-range interpretive plan
• Write an emergency management plan

4. Museums Connect: Building Global
Communities
The Museums Connect program strengthens
connections and cultural understanding between
people in the United States and abroad through
innovative projects facilitated by museums and
executed by their communities.
Mission: to build global communities through
cross-cultural exchanges while also
supporting U.S. foreign policy goals, such
as youth empowerment, environmental
sustainability and disability rights
awareness.
American Alliance of Museums

5. The Phone Call
Tales of Shock, Planning,
Announcements and Civil
War.
Or . . . Egypt, the program
that wasn’t.

6. Moving forward . . . A Garden Program in Transition

7. Museums Connect Part 2 . . .
Partnerships are formed
United States Honduras

8. Children of the Program
United States Honduras

9. United States Participants
Alan Angel Armando Brian
Daniela David Elizabeth Elmer

10. Fatima Jennifer Jose Jovanna
Perla Romeo Vanessa

11. Honduran Participants
Doris Gabriel Jairo Kenerson
Rafael Wilson Gilma Alexander

12. Rosario Naun

13. Common Ground Program
Project Goals
• Participants develop awareness of the environment and one’s connection
to it both locally and globally
• Participants develop a deeper understanding of environmental stewardship
in their own and their partner’s country
• Communities in the US and Honduras acquire knowledge and tools to
explain fundamental concepts about organic gardening
• Communities in both countries develop a broader knowledge and
increased understanding of one another’s cultures

14. Activities, Outputs, & Evaluations
• Garden Activities
• Workdays Twice a Month
• Plant, weed, harvest, water, tend the worm table and make compost
• Classroom Activities
• After School Activities Twice a Month
• Work on activities such as garden signs, videos, pen-pals, stelae, and cover curriculum topics
• Recipe Book
• Submit at least one family recipe that uses garden vegetables for a cookbook
• Community Suitcase
• Students share information about themselves, their families, schools, and neighborhoods by packing a community
Suitcase with a variety of objects that reflect their lives and the garden project
• Dialogues
• Participants Get to Know Each Other
• Skype sessions at least 4 times during the course of the project
• Participants participate in pen pals that they communicate via traditional mail.
• Travel
• Delegation Teams
• Both countries send a delegation made up of museum staff and partners to present the participants’ stelae and community suitcases to
exchange information regarding environmental education and stewardship strategies in partner countries.
• Evaluation
• Participants complete pre- and post-project evaluations to measure outcomes.

15. TWIGS Curriculum
Curriculum Overview
• 30 lessons that are developed to be used
independently as subject is appropriate
• Tool for Adults to work with children in the
development of a vegetable garden
• Helps children learn about healthy food
choices through a connection to gardening
• Garden and Nutrition Emphasis
• Connects children with science, nutritional food
and fiber production, ecological responsibility and
community beautification
• Opportunities for application of math and science
principles, language arts and multicultural
awareness
University of California Cooperative
Extension

16. Youth Participants at Work
King City Garden

17. King City Learning and Skyping

18. Copan Garden

19. Partners Connect
International Ambassadorship
• To meet the student participants
• Deepen the connection between
the CKCM and MCARLM
students through sharing of
Community Suitcase
• Deepen the connection between
project partners and
communities
• To broaden awareness and
knowledge of partner country
and each others cultures
Travel to Honduras

20. Day One
• Meeting with Casa K’inich Team
at Asociacion Copan
• Tour Casa K’inich Childrens
Museum
• Opened in 2002 to cultivate the
next generation of Hondurans to
care for the World Heritage Site
of Copan
• Tour of San Rafael Cheese
Factory
• Meeting with Raul Welchez
• Chamber of Commerce and
Industry President
• Hotel Proprietor
• Coffee Finca
• Cattle
The Teams Meet Ride up the Hill in a Tuk Tuk
Casa K’inich Childrens Museum Casa K’inich Childrens Museum
Gourmet Cheese Made in Copan Meeting with Copan Chamber

21. Day Two
• Mayan Ruins
• Sculpture Museum of Copan
• Over 43,000 Sq. ft, this museum houses and
protects remarkable Copan sculptures and a
life size replica of Rosalila, which was
discovered by archaeologist and Museums
Connect partner, Ricardo Agurcia in 1989.
• Casita Copan Children’s Home
• Mission – To reduce child abandonment by
nurturing orphaned and vulnerable children
and supporting single mothers.
• Vision – To break the cycle of child
abandonment by providing essential childcare
svs to working families whose economic
situation puts their children at risk of
abandonment and creating real homes for
orphaned and abandoned children.
• Copan Public School
Mayan Ruins
Casita Copan Copan Public School

22. Day Three
• Day with the Children of
Casita Copan
• One of the best days . . .
Ever
• Tour and lunch at Macaw
Mountain Bird Sanctuary

23. Hondurans Travel to USA

24. Day One
• Private Tour of Mission San
Antonio de Padua with
archeologist Dr. Hoover
• Cattle ranching
• Moving cattle with dogs
• Moving cattle with horses
• South County Hospitality
• Dinner, birthday party and
live music as the Casey
Home

25. Day Two
• Will Taylor Farms
• King City Nursery
• Gill Onions
• Hahn Estate Winery
• Cultural Activity
• Greenfield Community Science
Workshop
• Scheid Vineyards

26. Day Three
• Matsui Orchid Factory
• Carmel Beach
• Fisherman’s Wharf

27. Day Four
• Tour of Monterey County Agricultural
& Rural Life Museum
• Program/Visit BBQ

28. Day Five
• Monterey Bay Aquarium
• Cannery Row
• Lover’s Point
• Monterey Airport to say Goodbye!

29. Program ends . . . Goodbye to New Friends